What's the point of a long hose?

[lamont]

I was wondering why you would want to keep your distance from a diver you're sharing air with.

Donate gas to someone directly under a ferry boat lane where you can hear loud prop noise. Do you think that ascending directly into the boat props is going to be a good idea? Would you rather be able to swim upshore side-by-side in order to find a better place to surface?

 

[DevonDiver]

I think most novice divers will have experienced air-sharing, both on ascent and horizontal when finning. It's normally a confused situation, made worse by two divers in close proximity having to coordinate their finning and buoyancy whilst preventing the regulator being torn from a mouth due to separation of more than a few inches.

More than a few OOA divers have died when they lost grip on their donor and had the reg torn from the mouth. Differences in buoyancy between donor and reciever can mean that once a solid grip between them is lost, then they can easily be separated vertically in the water column. In bad viz, they may not reunite in sufficient time to get the OOA diver back onto air supply.

If the OOA divers has 'over-dumped' their BCD on ascent, and is negative, and then losses grip contact with the donor, they will sink back down quickly...with no air to gain neutral or positive buoyancy. For the donor, once that grip is lost... they lose the negative buoyancy of their OOA buddy.... getting suddenly postive and ascending quickly. By the time they get that buoyancy shift sorted... their OOA buddy has drifted away and down...and is lost.

Long hose makes 'distance' and 'grip' less critical. It also encourages divers to maintain equal ascent rates and identical buoyancy. With appropriate training and practice, it is a very safe option.

 

[Bubbletrubble]

An example.

I was doing the last dive on my Reef Check California training in Monterey. We were surveying a section of giant kelp forest. My buddy ran low on air, so we ascended to a safety stop, where he ran out. I immediately gave him my primary (on a standard hose) and went to my integrated octo.

At that point, we're pretty much locked into being face to face at a short distance. Hence, our only option was to ascend straight up. Normally, that wouldn't be much of an issue for open water diving. However, we were in the middle of a dense kelp forest.

Now, we're at the surface, a fair distance from the boat. I've got plenty of air, but my buddy is totally out. As I'm not willing to abandon him or to solo back to the boat, we can't descend and simply swim to the boat. Nope. We both have a long, pain-in-the-ass and tiring kelp crawl back to the boat.

By my next dive, I had a BP/W with a 7' foot hose.

Were that situation to re-occur, I would donate my primary, calm the OOA diver and then we'd both swim back to the boat, under the kelp canopy.

Of course, the long hose was originally developed by cave explorers who had to swim singly to exit narrow caves and couldn't do so while sharing air with a conventional rig. However, lots of us open water divers have virtual overheads, such as the above-mentioned kelp forest or an area frequented by boats.

Hope this helps.

@fisheater: In the situation you described given a long hose, are you sure that sharing air with the OOA diver and swimming back to the boat under the kelp canopy is the best decision? My concern would be what could happen if the two of you got separated underwater during the air-share. As you pointed out, swimming under a thick kelp canopy may block direct ascent to the surface. Clearly, this is an issue for the OOA diver who just lost his gas supply. Compare the risks in this course of action to those of the kelp crawl.

I'll concede that the probability of buddy separation and/or a problem arising with the sole gas supply is very, very low. Still, given the scenario you described, I'd opt for the kelp crawl. Both divers would have unrestricted, independent access to an unlimited air supply. You could see and talk to each other the entire time. You could rest if you got tired. The DM on the boat could monitor your progress and assist if necessary. Less convenient in some ways...but also less risk.

FWIW, I am a recreational diver who uses a 5-foot primary hose, and I do a fair amount of kelp diving here in SoCal.

 

[knowone]

Missed Bud O'clock in the considering forum.

 

[Rhone Man]

Last Sunday I had to do a fairly long swim with my Dad breathing off my doubles (at depth), and for various reasons I had two short hoses attached.

No matter how carefully you try, every so often your legs collide, and it just reminds you how much easier this would be if you had put the long hose on.

 

[chazrich]

All the considerations about swimming in single column, on scooters, or otherwise aside, I prefer my 5 foot hose just because the shorter hose seemed to always tug on my reg, especially when I looked sharply to the left. It just made sense to me to go with a slightly longer hose and there's actually only about a foot and half difference between a five footer and my stock hose.

Additionally, getting the hose off my shoulder, down under my armpit and along my side has already proven to be less likely to snag on things and it may just be my imaginiation, but it seems to cut down on drag too.

Now if I can just get the dive shop, instructors, and dive buddies to stop looking at me like I'm a freak everytime I show up with my Hog second stage on a swivel and five foot hose. I almost have one of my buddies convinced, though, after I handed my reg to him over his shoulder and from behind in a recent practice rescue.

 

[GrumpyOldGuy]

@fisheater: In the situation you described given a long hose, are you sure that sharing air with the OOA diver and swimming back to the boat under the kelp canopy is the best decision? My concern would be what could happen if the two of you got separated underwater during the air-share. As you pointed out, swimming under a thick kelp canopy may block direct ascent to the surface. Clearly, this is an issue for the OOA diver who just lost his gas supply. Compare the risks in this course of action to those of the kelp crawl.

I'll concede that the probability of buddy separation and/or a problem arising with the sole gas supply is very, very low. Still, given the scenario you described, I'd opt for the kelp crawl. Both divers would have unrestricted, independent access to an unlimited air supply. You could see and talk to each other the entire time. You could rest if you got tired. The DM on the boat could monitor your progress and assist if necessary. Less convenient in some ways...but also less risk.

FWIW, I am a recreational diver who uses a 5-foot primary hose, and I do a fair amount of kelp diving here in SoCal.

I have been in a similar same situation. The key difference is my buddy recognized he was LOG (he never went OOG) and we shared air on a leisurely return swim under the kelp with 600PSI still in his tank. He switched back to his own gas at the S/S and surfaced with 400PSI. Obviously we had some post dive discussion, but the long hose allowed up to manage the screw-up with minimum fuss and no need to make a choice of the less of 2 evils.

 

[Blackwood]

- From my point of view if your sharing air with some one, you might as well be tied to them. If they are panicky and holding onto your reg, you can't really swim away from them.
I think a shorter hose would be more ideal because it provides less of an entanglement possibility (which I already believe isn't much of a risk).

If you're sharing air with someone I believe you should take control and be right next to them. Grab a hold of them in a do-si-do and perform an ascent as safely as possible. It's a lot better than being dragged by the hose around the wide open ocean.

Overheads were mentioned. Also consider ascent in heavy current where you must swim horizontally to maintain position to an upline. Also consider situations where you may be sharing air for reasons other than an emergency: last dive I did my buddy was trying new, thick undergarments. He underestimated how much additional weight to bring, and could tell soon into the dive that he was underweighted. So rather than burn his gas and get even lighter, he shared with his two teammates. The long hose allowed us to swim side by side without crawling on top of one another and continue a leisurely dive.

If you really want to keep a victim in close, you don't have to deploy the whole hose if you route it like I do, i.e. how Devon showed.

 

[usi]

It is a proven fact many panicked divers will grab the reg from your mouth. With a long hose it already is the one you are trained to donate and your back up is bungeed close to your chin for easy delivery into your mouth. You will always know right were your backup reg is. Too many times I see people with their octos dragging in the sand. The chances of them finding it quickly are slim.

I have a question concerning this... if the OOA diver grabs your reg from your mouth unexpectedly, don't you get pulled even closer with the hose still around your head?

 

[fisheater]

@fisheater: In the situation you described given a long hose, are you sure that sharing air with the OOA diver and swimming back to the boat under the kelp canopy is the best decision? My concern would be what could happen if the two of you got separated underwater during the air-share. As you pointed out, swimming under a thick kelp canopy may block direct ascent to the surface. Clearly, this is an issue for the OOA diver who just lost his gas supply. Compare the risks in this course of action to those of the kelp crawl.

I'll concede that the probability of buddy separation and/or a problem arising with the sole gas supply is very, very low. Still, given the scenario you described, I'd opt for the kelp crawl. Both divers would have unrestricted, independent access to an unlimited air supply. You could see and talk to each other the entire time. You could rest if you got tired. The DM on the boat could monitor your progress and assist if necessary. Less convenient in some ways...but also less risk.

FWIW, I am a recreational diver who uses a 5-foot primary hose, and I do a fair amount of kelp diving here in SoCal.

Had my buddy been at all panicy, I wouldn't have longed for a long hose.

The point is that with a short hose, we had to ascend right there, in the middle of the heavy kelp canopy. (As were surveying the kelp community, we were diving in the thick of it, where most divers would avoid for less dense areas.)

With a long hose we ascend there, as we did, or we could swim back to the boat, or we could ascend, sort stuff out and then re-descend and swim to the boat.

Long hose = options. Short hose = no options.

(I also found that the long hose was way better in kelp. No more fighting to keep my reg in place, no matter how thick the kelp.)